Sa north diversion road

I hated my film class. I was very excited when i enlisted because we get to watch films and analyze it plus it's a good jump from the killer piles of readings that normal subjects require. And who would not be excited to attend a subject called Film? So i think it would be a walk in the park for me since it would not be a task where i have to really push myself to do it but it is actually something i normally do where i would be graded. The excitement turned into hell because i actually dreaded the mondays and thursdays of having to attend film class. It was boring. It was 9am after my renaissance literature class and right before my theology class so half the time i was busy oogling with my theo notes (work paid off..i got UNO in theo!). We're also required to go to school every wednesday bec. it's the day they show the films. I have no class every wednesday and that's a choice because my car is coding i want to sleep. So yeah imagine how i cursed film class everytime i get up early to go to school every wednesday which practically just happened thrice the entire semester because i did not go to the film showings anyway. Hahah. And the thing i hate the most about it was how we have to recite in front with the remote control analzying the film. You are called randomly with the help of the ever deadly index cards that students really hate. So you do not know which film you are about to talk about. It was not really that hard. I just hated it because i do not want to talk in front about a certain a movie. I want to write. I get really emotional when i talk about something that i'm really fond of. So shit yeah it was hard for me. I failed the midterms badly with a score of 19/50. The baddest of the bad. I swear. So shit i told myself i have to work my butt off now. So papers..i have to do well in all of them. We wrote 5 papers i think the entire semester about several films. I did well which i think helped my grade. I got a 2.00 in this class which was not bad because i was hoping to get a 2.5.Anyway..

Our last requirement was an indie tagalog film entitled "Sa north diversion road" by Dennis Marasigan. I loved that film very much. It was the second time i saw an indie pinoy flick after ang pagdadalaga..and i was taken again. i want more! I wanted to catch cinemalaya but i never had the chance. Hopefully next time i would. Anyway I was browsing through my files and i saw my comment about it. It was disorganized but most of the papers i did in this film class was honest and just. I just type whatever i want to say without editing. Heheh here are parts of what i wrote about it:

All in all, I would highly recommend this film. I think a lot can relate to it since it does not only show both men and women but their different characteristics too. The movie captured the moods and social classes as well as depicted in the every episode. Everything is in the movie, from the yuppie to the old fashioned couple uttering comical love to each other, the hippie straightforward one exchanging amusing mocking words towards each other to the couple pissing each other off with the things around them but did not utter a single word except in the end when the woman shouted “kaliwete” (lefty) in the man’s face followed by a loud rock guitar strum that concluded the episode. I really enjoyed that episode the most. The concept and stillness was really different creating a slapstick yet meaningful comedic effect. Then we see the 70’s funky couple very fond of pink, laughing their problems off to the almost robotic intellectual couple both dressed in white, everything in their lives are organized and planned, and they even planned and organized their problems to death. All of these episodes, put into perfection by the great sound and production design.

Sa north diversion road is a refreshing shift from the usual predictable stuff that we see in cinemas today. From the title itself, you’ll see the metaphor that life is a long road with different directions you can turn into depending on the destination that you are headed. The movie’s greatness was neither the beginning nor the ending. It was the journey itself of the ten couples driving along the north diversion road. It was amazing how the director managed to do a movie that happened in the same car with the same actors and still create a refreshing cinematic experience. Hands down, the best thing about the movie was the actor’s performance. Their performance really gave justice to the film. It was astounding that they both portrayed all the couples but yet everything seemed effortless as if they have been doing it forever. It is sad to think that amazing films like this did not even get the chance to be seen by people in the movie theaters. Sa north diversion road is definitely one of the better Filipino films I’ve seen.

Hehe how disorganized. It's like an exceprt from this journal haha. So random and informal. Anyway i'm definitely gonna miss watching different films again. It is in this class where i finally experienced Akira Kurosawa's greatness. Seven Samurai is now on the top of my book. I loved that film.